The wolf in the polar fox's clothing

20.04.09

The commercial real estate market has frozen — you know why; and as known as the exclusive operators for business-centers froze as well. In far away satisfied times they staked out a claim on office buildings and locked themselves up in a room as the three piggies. And now their corner is up in the air: the owners do not risk forcing up the only operator services and opening the door for the alternative operators.

The changes on the office estate market couldn’t but influence telecommunication operators that work with business-centers. Firstly, they were obliged to fit the tariffs to the crisis reality as the other market players had done. Mass sector providers frequently confess the prices rising, otherwise corporate segment operators to save the base of the clients should lower tariffs. By the evaluation of “Gars Telecom”, Moscow and Saint-Petersburg operators since the beginning of the 2009 year have lowered tariffs by an average of 20% to avoid the subscribers’ loss.

The refusal to use exclusive providers influenced the business of the “office” providers more than exercises with the tariffs. Yevgeny Plotnikov confirms that this tendency will be the driver of his company growth: “In the light of the current situation business-centers refuse in mass the exclusive operators trying to save the tenants. It gives us an opportunity to enter those business-centers that have been ‘closed’ long before”, — argues he.

For the big fish like “Golden Telecom” (recently “Beeline-Business”) there are sad news. That means that “Golden Telecom” used to be exclusive provider for offices. Business-centers bring stable income to provider: an exclusive provider invoices the 15-20% prices higher than market ones. And now while the crisis times the market is transforming the exclusive operators should be forgotten.

The Experts from Colliers International Company forecast that up to the end of the 1H of 2009 year there will be free about 20% of the “A” and “B” class offices — companies move to the chipper buildings. But even in the case when the client decides to move; the operator founds the way to stay with the client forever. Traditionally, the move is followed by the pool of numbers loss or with the transfer to another operator. Long before companies asked the realtor to find the office with the same operator. But today the operator is ready to find the office for client. “Comstar-OTS”, Gars Telecom and WestCall have announced that they are ready to help with tenancy: providers have information about the free squares, closely communicate with Management Companies. So the help for clients to move to the more appropriate office saving telephone numbers is a new “crisis” service.